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do MDs have muthrai?

Topic started by badri raghavan (@ 206.103.12.125) on Mon Jun 15 23:50:42 EDT 1998.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

every music director wants to leave a stamp of his contribution on every creation of his. but do they have one and is that discernable by the audience?

in carnatic music, thyagaraja swami's krithis have the muthrai of thyagaraja, dikshitar's have guruguha and shyma sastri's shymakrishna.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Sriram Lakshman (@ spider-tn041.proxy.aol.com) on: Sun Oct 31 02:46:20 EST 1999
  
  Rajan,Vijay frankly I have not heard a single song of his in the 90's (apart from Sundari...) with this feature. I personally felt that IR sounded even fresher than his mid-80 days , in the early 90s. You will not find formula of any kind in "Thoothu selvaaradi","Nalam vaazha YennaaLum", "Chinna KaNNa" ,"Potri paadadi ponne".
  
  
  
• From: hari (@ spider-wc074.proxy.aol.com) on: Sun Oct 31 13:50:23 EST 1999
  
  sl,
  Though I have never noticied it before, after you mentioned, starting interlude mullai poo pallakku did sound like a bgm ( what we had in those days).
  IMO, KVM's songs are more rhytemic than MSV's, his percussions are compartively louder.
  
  I think, in general, because of few MDS we had, and luckily all had their own style, it is not difficult to find out the MD, unlike hindi, it is always mix of hybrid styles there.
  
  IMO, IR music in 70's are very differnet from 80's. Most of the 70's songs, I can hum the tunes and even the interludes, and it sounded very simple and enjoyable compared to his 80's songs, This could be due to the change in his philosphy for composing songs, as you mentioned.
  
  He relied heavily on flute, guitar and tabla in his 70's songs, and that adds to the uniqueness in those songs. I always felt that he rarely created songs after 80's with same flavour. I can recall very few, one duet, I remember in the movie mudhal vasandham in mid 80's, sounded very much like his 70's songs.
  
  e.hari
  
  
  
• From: Srinath (@ 209.8.128.113) on: Sun Oct 31 21:21:22 EST 1999
  
  Sriram L:
  To me IR's repetition of pallavi lines in a different scale sounds similar to WCM where movements are repeated in different scales and tempos. Perhaps this is an inherent feature of WCM (no, I am not getting defensive either ;-), it is just the "IR is faultless" syndrome ;-)))
  
  Another characteristic of IR's interludes are where one instrument picks up the lead only to morph into a supportive role with a second instrument taking over the lead. For example, the second interlude of "Pani Vizhum Iravu", the guitar starts off with the lead. When a second alto-sax like instrument joins in, the guitar slips into a supportive role with the second instrument taking over the lead. Another example would be the second interlude of "Poove Sempoove". Anybody else notice this ?
  
  
• From: Sriram Lakshman (@ spider-tr081.proxy.aol.com) on: Mon Nov 1 00:59:16 EST 1999
  
  Srinath aka Devathi Deva :-))), good point. I remember the 'pani vizhum...' interlude, not the other one though ;-(.Another example, the third interlude in 'Samakkozhi..Koovuthamma' (sung by IR and SPS). It starts off with an organ piece recursively playing three notes, the violin then takes over as the lead ,the organ piece goes in the background and then shifts to a lower scale.
  
  
• From: Srinath (@ mail.startec.net) on: Mon Nov 1 10:04:05 EST 1999
  
  Sriram L:
  What can I say to prove to you that I am not DD ? Why do you want to give DD this undeserved attention ? Could it be because you have "so much" in common with him ? ;-) C'mon now ! Out with the truth, you are DD, aren't you ? :-)
  
  
• From: pg (@ gate02.merck-medco.com) on: Mon Nov 1 11:54:11 EST 1999
  
  This technique of two instruments playing lead/supportive roles in alternate is again a WCM concept - you can find this in concertos for multiple instruments, quartets, quintets etc.
  
  For example listen to Beethoven's Triple concerto (for violin, cello and piano).
  
  
• From: e.hari (@ telisp1c01.ml.com) on: Mon Nov 1 17:37:58 EST 1999
  
  yes, I have noticed this feature of playing two instruments and overlapping it, in lot of his songs. I dont know, whether Ir was the first to try this in film music. I noticed the same feature in first interlude of the song - 'innum parthu kondirindal ennavadhu'. I know it is a copied song from hindi, but I dont know the original Md name.
  
  Also as vijay noticed, second interludes are always special in his songs. Eg. Kadhal kavithagal eludidum neram, the second interlude is very different.
  e.hari
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Wed Nov 3 14:15:12 EST 1999
  
  This same technique is used in BGM to convey some indecision/change of mood. I noticed that the violin and piano were playing the same thing (almost) in mahAnadhi. The violin part conveys tension and the piano part relief. This BGM is played when kamal and suganya get close but always get disturbed or something.
  
  Another point about IR is - there is some character to the songs in a particular movie or type of movie. For eg. karaGAttakkAran. In the case of ARR (say songs in Sangamam - same story) almost all his songs sound the same (compared to songs from other movies) to me.
  
  
• From: raja (@ icon-njfw.icon.com) on: Wed Nov 3 15:33:55 EST 1999
  
  Nice to find a thread with no adithadis ..(as yet :))
  
  One thing IMO I find in IR's early work was his unique style of using of background singers/humming (in addition to the lead singer(s) ( an example is Yeh Thendraley - Nenjathai Killadhey) -one could surely know the song was from IR. One more was his use of folk beats was and is unique. He also used an instrument (I have not identified it - could be a electronic synthesizer...) in many interludes an example is Uravenum from Nenjathai Killadhey. (No other song comes to mind right now). His use of Santoor ( Chinna Kannan from Kavik Kuyil) and other songs is surely unique.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.25.60) on: Wed Nov 3 23:56:27 EST 1999
  
  e.hari,
  Another classic example of IR changing the BGM in the second interlude is the song 'kaathodu poovorasa' recently uploaded in rex's site(song no. 328.
  
  

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